


Requiem of Spirit

by godtiermeme



Series: "Please stop writing these awful AKIRA-style AU's." [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Asexuality, Cyborgs, M/M, Sentience, space travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiermeme/pseuds/godtiermeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider is a bounty hunter and man-for-hire from the Ganymede port city of Prospit.</p><p>Karkat, also known as CG-413, is a sentient rogue AI trapped in the body of an obsolete medical android.</p><p>(An AU inspired by the world of Cowboy Bebop with traces of Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 classic, AKIRA.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 天牢一

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. I named this after the song from Ocarina of Time.

As far as jobs went, this one was fairly simple. All that was required was the capture of some rogue AI from decades ago—a stray unit known as the CG-413. Gain the unit’s trust, escort it back to the Crocker Corporation headquarters, and collect the massive bounty. Easier than taking candy from a sleeping baby.

After all, Dave Strider had dealt with worse. His taste for reckless abandon and general disdain for personal safety had long since led him to become a bounty hunter. And he did his job well. At the very least, he’d earned himself the pseudonym of Knight of Time for his exploits.

Now, if Dave Strider had a say in this, he’d say he did his job pretty damned well—maybe even better than anyone. He had a knack for knowing when to be where to catch his target. He was connected to reality enough to maintain a decent reputation (one which was perhaps marred only by his smoking habit and somewhat aloof personality); but he was also disconnected enough to feel little remorse for his actions.

As he saw it, everyone he’d ever caught had something that warranted their arrest. Whether that something was petty robbery or murder was of little importance to him. No, what was important to Dave was the bounty—the massive stacks of cold, hard cash that he walked away with from nearly every hunt.

So, with that considered, Dave didn’t think much of this job. He’d handled rogue AI before. They were little more than the manifestation of the donor mind’s memories surfacing and triggering varying degrees of sentience. Sure, some were violent; some were perfectly able to kill him; but, really, he didn’t care.

Besides, this unit was a dead giveaway. For starters, the AI had chosen perhaps the strangest name possible—Karkat. On top of that, the physical condition of the robot—which had be wandering around aimlessly for at least twenty years—wasn’t exactly pristine.

And that only made Dave’s job easier. He took little time in discerning CG-413 in a crowded bar. A short male model whose build was average in every possible sense, sure, but not entirely human in appearance. Perhaps the most prominent sign of artificial life were the scattered patches of missing synthetic skin—places where the rusting metal components within stood out like a sore thumb against a sea of medium brown. Then, of course, there were the eyes—two obsolete cameras surrounded by a gently pulsating ring of golden yellow.

The caveat here was that the unit had to be captured alive. Not that that was much of an issue, either. As far as Dave knew, most rogue AI were confused electronic piles of junk. Somehow, though, this particular model didn’t seem to fit the mold. Specifically, there was something about the CG-413 that was oddly human—something about the way it held itself.

Confident. That was the only word Dave could think of to describe the AI. The CG-413 was confident. And to be quite honest, that was something that unnerved Dave.

Still, he pushed those thoughts aside. He hadn’t gotten to where he was by shying away from discomfort. Hell, he was proud to say that he’d stared death in the eye a handful of times and walked away from it. Some seemingly confident artificial intelligence wasn’t going to deter him.

And, so, it began.

He sat down to the left of the CG-413 and observed the AI’s actions closely. He watched as it dipped the exposed metal skeleton of its left hand into the water and, after a moment of thought, absentminded stirred the liquid with its outstretched index finger. He studied the way its gaze wandered casually—the way its thick, black, artificial brows furrowed when said gaze fell upon something unusual.

For a while, he did just this—he observed. Yet, for the first time, he found himself entertaining the idea that (at the very least) this particular AI had developed its own sense of identity. Perhaps, somewhere within the bundles of wire that comprised the core of its being, the original donor—the mind uploaded to the system—had somehow realized their own situation. Perhaps…

…No. This wasn’t his place to judge. He was a simple bounty hunter; he didn’t deal with mortality or philosophical musings. And, yet…

“You just going to sit there staring at me like some fucking horny bug-eyed kid watching porn or are you going to say something?”

The voice—a slightly electronic but still undoubtedly commanding sound—drew Dave out of his odd moment of introspection. “Oh… Yeah. Sorry,” he muttered. He frowned, pulled a cigarette from his jacket pocket, and lit it. After inhaling deeply from its carcinogenic fumes, he breathed a quiet sigh. “So… You got a name or anything?”

“What the hell does it matter to you?” snapped the AI.

“It doesn’t,” Dave shrugged. “I was just wondering. You certainly don’t look like any other typical bar-squatter. And you sure as hell ain’t drinking what you’ve ordered.”

Here, the unit paused. It eyed Dave over a few times before offering an indifferent shrug. “Name’s Karkat Vantas, if you’re so fucking interested. And I’m guessing yours is Pries-a-lot the Insufferable Bastard?”

Did the AI just make a joke…? Use sarcasm? That wasn’t supposed to be possible… No… Of course not.

“Actually, the name’s Dave Strider.” Here, the slightly dazed bounty hunter did the first thing he could think of. He extended his hand towards the AI and offered a forced, confused half-smile. “I’m… Um… Well, what I do ain’t all that important.”

Karkat—or, rather, the AI—refused the gesture. “I know what you’re getting at here. You’re about as smooth as goddamned sandpaper. Now, what the fuck is it that you want? Probably to finally collect on the chicken shit artificial intelligence I’ve been lugging around for the past twenty-some years, right?”

“Well… Um… Yeah?” Dave sputtered.

“I was programmed to be a combat medic. My basic functions include analyzing vocal patterns and parsing out lies. From those lies, I draw logical conclusions. And, for you, you insufferable chucklefuck, I can reasonably infer that you’re just another bounty hunter.”

“Technically, yeah…”

“Of course it’s correct. I’ve spent the past twenty years trudging through this backwater shithole of a city. I’ve met enough stuffy, overconfident, vapid jarheads like you to know the obvious. But, hey, I can stand your disgusting, fleshy vessel more than I could some others. You want to try and take me back, go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

A frown began to work its way onto Dave’s usually passive features. “You’re not even going to put up a fight? Nothing? You’re… This ain’t right. All basic artificial intelligence is programmed with a need to survive…”

“Well, contrary to what a myriad of poorly planned and awfully designed notices claim, I’m not exactly the standard dime-store artificial intelligence. Hell, as confounding as it might be for your microscopic mind to understand, there’s actually this thing called sentience. I’m not quite sure you’ve exactly mastered that skill, though.”

Here, CG-413 shrugged. “See, sentience requires a certain degree of self-awareness. And I’m assuming from my preliminary assessments that you are quite spectacularly lacking in this seemingly fucking basic human trait.” It wrapped its skeletal left hand around the glass of ice water and scraped a metallic claw against its edge. “Besides, being sentient just isn’t a bounty hunter thing, is it? I know your type. All of you fucking empty-headed bastards just run around and shoot whatever you’re told to. You don’t make your own choices…”

Around this point, Dave rolled his eyes. He pulled from his pocket an odd sort of probe—a long, metal prong attached to a thick, battery-powered base. “Yeah, whatever. That’s enough from you.”

He turned the device on and aimed a well-placed jab where the right shoulder blade would typically be.

The CG-413, in return, twitched slightly before abruptly shutting down.

And Dave, satisfied with his efforts, gathered the powered-down unit over his shoulder. He took it outside of the bar without much fanfare and loaded it into his beaten-down old ship—a refurbished racing craft, to be specific. The Timestopper, as he liked to call it. A gaudy, bright red ship in which its owner took much pride.

Once safely inside, he tapped away at an old touchscreen from the 2040’s. After a while, a grainy image appeared. “You get the guy or nah?”

“Of course I did, Egbert,” Dave shrugged. “Where’re we dropping off this one?”

The image on the monitor blinked. Then, after some thought, replied, “It’ll be a bit of a trip, since we’ll have to stop for fuel at some point… But we should be fine.”

“That’s great, Egbert. But how long are we looking at?”

“Maybe a month?”

“A month with this metal trash heap?” groaned Dave. “Well… We’ve got a two million dollar bounty on the bastard, so at least it’s a worthwhile reward…”

* * *

 

The oddly named _Grimoire_ was, at some point, a fully functional space-faring warship. Its duties were to ferry around five ready-to-fight crafts of a much smaller size and hold a crew of up to fifty men. By the time that it fell into the hands of Rose Lalonde and Kanaya Maryam, however, it was a mostly-destroyed wreck.

That said, with a good bit of love and attention, the ship was eventually converted into a fairly luxurious vessel. In total, the entire ship was refitted to contain three separate bedrooms—which, themselves, were practically their own independent housing units—each with their own bathroom. Aside from this, a massive kitchen and regal dining room were installed. A display room held various treasures recovered from years of roaming the galaxy. It was, in every sense, the spacefaring luxury hotel.

And, thanks to the fact that he shared genetic material with one of its two owners, Dave Strider had practically free reign on it. At least, he was given his own room and allowed to decorate it as he pleased.

So it was that his living space ended up looking more like a collection of garbage. Outdated CDs and records were stacked to the ceiling. Clothes were hung in the oddest places—from the bedposts to the exposed piping along the ceiling. Various fossils and long-dead organisms suspended in toxic liquids lined the shelves. And, perhaps most tellingly, a relatively small table in the corner of the room was overflowing with an array of both medical and mechanical supplies.

By this point, however, the _Grimoire_ had already departed their asteroid settlement. Now, it simply drifted towards its new destination. And it was here—specifically in Dave Strider’s disorganized living space—that the CG-413 began to gradually come to.

It was also here that Dave Strider found himself haphazardly plugging random variables into an outdated computer—essentially an ancient terminal that showed only text. From the oddly cobbled-together box sitting beside the computer ran a bundle of wires, which eventually attached to a gunmetal grey port in his lower back.

“Keep the damned thing in my room,” he grumbled to no one in particular. “Shit. Absolute bullshit. And then everyone just gets pissed at me for wondering if we can just keep the damned thing powered down…”

He paused, winced, and banged his fist against the top of the terminal’s monitor. “Well, the bounty on this bastard’s enough for me to never have to put up with this touchy technological puddle of piss ever again, right? Yeah. Of course.”

* * *

 

_“You might as well try to get along with him, Dave.”_

_“Me? Getting along with the fucking tin can? Yeah. That’s a cool idea, Rose. Not like those fuckers ruined my life. I mean… Wow. If it wasn’t for them, I’d probably be that DJ I always wanted to be as a kid. But yeah, Rose. I’ll just forget all that and…”_

_“We’re essentially confined to this ship for a month, Dave. There’s no point in being so outrageously against him.”_

_“Easy for you to say…”_

* * *

Routine daily maintenance.

It was a standard part of Dave Strider’s life; it had been for five years. Most of it was fairly innocuous—making sure the software dictating his bodily functions wasn’t corrupted, for instance. But, then, there was one task that he’d never grown accustomed to—the spinal recalibration.

According to countless others, it was supposed to be a walk in the park. Plug yourself into the shitty little terminal you were sent home with and let the computer work its magic. Then, unplug yourself and experience the wonders of the sensation of touch.

Of course, most people with cybernetics didn’t exactly get them the same way Dave had. Likewise, most people didn’t have to deal with the fact that their outdated model seemed intent on simply settling with a constant tingling rather than any sort of usable sensation.

“Fucking shit.” He breathed in, rubbed the unnaturally smooth skin of his right arm, and sighed.

Calibration 10% complete.

This was going to be a while.

Another sigh escaped him as he slumped back against the pillows at the head of his bed. He absentmindedly ran his fingers through his golden blond hair. “Four weeks, Strider. Four weeks until this piece of shit can get swapped… Fuck!” He winced and slammed his fist against the side of the buzzing terminal.

“You know… You’ve probably damaged the terminal if you’ve been beating your infantile anger into that thing.”

Dave paused. A small frown played at the edge of his lips as his gaze slid towards a smug-looking and rather awake CG-413. He snarled. “Like I didn’t know that already, tin can.”

“Name’s Karkat Vantas.”

“That’s great. I didn’t ask you for your damned opinion, did I?” Dave's frown grew more pronounced. He fiddled around in his jacket pocket for a moment before pulling forth a cigarette and lighter.

“Nope.”

Here, Dave opened his mouth as if to say something. Before he spoke, though, he paused. He sighed. He lit the cigarette. “Yeah… Okay... How about we try this deal? We mutually agree to stop being assholes.”

“That’s sudden.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t put up with this for a month.”

Karkat shrugged. “Fair enough, I guess. What a surprisingly reasonable request coming from the mouth of such a boneheaded asshole.”

“Don’t push your luck, tin can,” Dave snapped.

“Wasn’t going to. Now, do you have a spare room in this garbage heap?”

“Nope.” Dave shrugged. He glanced briefly at the blinking terminal before treating himself to a drag from the toxic cigarette jutting from between his lips. “You’re stuck with me, tin can. Ain’t that just the dandiest thing you ever heard? You and me. Stuck in hell together.”

Here, Karkat’s expression shifted. It changed to something more akin to a dismayed scowl. “You… That’s a joke, right? Please, for the love of all things that are great in this shitty galaxy, tell me that’s a fucking joke…”

Another shrug. Dave breathed in deeply. Then, he blew forth a massive plume of smoke from his slightly parted lips. “Nope. It’s real as hell. Get used to it. And for safety reasons, I’m obligated to follow your metallic ass everywhere. Gotta’ make sure you don’t go too rogue and murder someone.”

“Does murdering someone count if they fucking deserve it? More specifically, does it count if I just do this entire vessel a tremendous favor and murder you?”

“I’m a bounty hunter.” A smirk crossed Dave’s face as he absentmindedly rapped his knuckles against the side of the terminal. “If I haven’t died yet, I probably ain’t dying any time soon. But…” He paused and bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. “Dammit…” he grumbled. “What… I was… Oh… Yeah. You’d damn well be doing me a favor, too, though, so be careful what you ask for.”

Here, Dave raised his gaze towards Karkat and, oddly enough, he saw a trace of something other than disgust. If he had to name it, he’d have to say that he saw something akin to concern. Certainly, though, that wasn’t right. What type of person would be concerned for the jackass who’d imprisoned them?

And, yet, when Karkat spoke, there was the slightest hint of just that. “You know, you mindless twit, I _am_ certified to provide medical care…”

“I’ve done this long enough without your damned help.”

“And…? What? You’re just content to let yourself bumble around with some convoluted technological shit?” Here, Karkat paused. He ran the exposed metal fingers—or, rather, the basic underlying skeletal structure for them—through his wild black hair, and shrugged. “Look, I’m not saying I don’t hate you. I truly, sincerely loathe your very existence. But… I do have a basic programmed function and… Well…”

“You can’t possibly want to help me, could you?” Dave sneered. “Look, if you think you’ve got the know-how to fix this thing, then you’re out of your fucking electronic mind.”

“Look, you ingrate, I’ve been stuck in this metal hell for long enough to know what the fuck is going on in my own goddamned mind. Or… At least what’s fucking left of it. And the basic, visceral programming only reacts to problems it can fix. Now, do you want my damned help or not?”

“I…” Dave paused. He plucked his cigarette from his mouth and rubbed the sleeve of his jacket against his lip to try and catch some of the blood. He sighed, tapped the cigarette against the edge of a beaten-up porcelain ashtray, and shrugged. Not that sort of casual shrug, of course; no, this was a more aggressive sort of shrug—the type of shrug given when one is just about ready to throw everything down and walk away. And, his verbal exclamation of “the fuck if I care” only cemented the shrug’s meaning.

And yet, in return, Karkat simply nodded. He approached the terminal, flipped it so the screen was facing him, and began to diligently peck at the keys. “Someone programmed this wrong to begin with. Did the most inexplicably awful calibration job I’ve ever had the distinguished misfortune to see…” he muttered. "What’s this thing hooked up to?”

“Damn near everything,” Dave muttered.

“I can tell.”

An odd sort of silence filled the room. The only sounds which punctuated it were the quiet taps of Karkat’s fingers against the keyboard and the occasional grunt of discomfort from an increasingly irritated Dave Strider.

Eventually, it was the latter who broke the silence. A simple, dazed exclamation. “What did… What the hell did you do?”

And in return, Karkat allowed himself the luxury of a smirk. “I recalibrated everything. Everything was set to just damned near outrageously low thresholds. I could have essentially skewered you through before you’d feel anything.” He paused. The smirk faded and was replaced, instead, by an enigmatic frown. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Dave, too, paused. He disconnected the wires running between him and terminal and, after a while, managed a quiet, mumbled response. “Yeah… Thanks, I guess… You… Maybe you’re not half bad.”

After even more time, Dave eventually breathed a heavy sigh—one that pushed a plume of smoke from between his lips—and glanced once more at Karkat. From what he knew, no sentient life should have ever advanced to this point; it wasn’t supposed to be possible. All sentience was supposed to hit the built-in security measures. Even then, waking up in an essentially immortal vessel that, in all likelihood, looked nothing like what was normal usually didn’t sit well with people, either.

Still, the evidence was in front of him. He had to admit that this so-called tin can—this CG-413—was certainly aware enough to be considered human. And, yet, that raised the question… Could he turn him in?

The bounty posted was clear enough about the outcome. Karkat would essentially cease to exist—taken apart and studied like a lab specimen.

No. He’d barely known Karkat—this last remaining CG-413 unit—for a singular day. He couldn’t possibly…

“Look, if I promise not to go one some sort of crazed, wild killing spree, can I just look around this dumpy little spacecraft?”

Dave, in response to the unexpected interruption to his own thoughts, simply nodded. “Yeah,” he muttered dismissively, “Go… Do whatever…”

* * *

 

Karkat Vantas knew little about the specific intricacies of his technological build.

He knew, however, some small but ultimately inconsequential things. He knew he was able to charge naturally through solar power and maintain said charge for a respectable amount of time. He knew he could do things that no normal human could ever do—picking up cars, for example, and performing on-the-spot surgery (technically without prior training). He could scan facial expressions and read emotions and detect lies.

But, in other, seemingly basic, ways he didn’t have nearly as much function. His vision was strictly monochrome—the only color happened to be any sort of informational overlays the technology offered, which were displayed in orange. Perhaps more frustratingly, though, the entirety of his mind was relegated to a certain amount of data. And, while he wasn’t sure what the exact amount was, he knew that a good portion of his memories had been erased and replaced with the basic medical knowledge his build required.

Not that any of these are truly problems in the grander scheme of things. He was, essentially, immortal. Only damage to any of the well-protected components that were vital for his survival would be able to destroy his mind. He needed little to sustain himself and was specifically designed to withstand most traditional combat technology—from bullets to low-powered lasers.

Yet, he felt there was something missing.

And, as he wandered the seemingly endless expanse of the _Grimoire_ , he found himself contemplating these issues.

Certainly, Dave was right to some degree. His physical existence was wholly artificial; but, at the same time, his mind was (for the most part) human. And, as he constantly reminded himself, he had the ability to feel emotions.

He sighed—a low, guttural, tinny noise that echoed through his mind—and folded his arms across his chest.

“And I presume that you’re the newly acquired bounty head that Dave seems to unhinged about?”

As anyone else would in reaction to an unexpected voice, Karkat jumped. His gaze swept over to a woman with a fair amount of physical similarities to Dave.

And, yet, in contrast to what Karkat had come to expect, the woman smirked. “My name’s Rose Lalonde. Through a rather unfortunate twist of fate, I’m the cousin of that vehement bounty hunter you probably just finished escaping from. You can just call me Rose.

“…Rose?” came the dazed reply. “I… Um…”

“Yes, the intergalactic bounty file told me all about you. Your name is Karkat Vantas and you’re the last remaining CG-413.” An odd sort of smile—one that wasn’t quite threatening but, at the same time, not exactly comforting—spread across Rose’s face. “My wife, Kanaya, is probably gallivanting around somewhere on this ship. So, enough pleasantries, I’m assuming my cousin gave you a sufficiently horrid welcome here?”

“Um… Yeah,” Karkat muttered. “Yeah… You could say that. Whatever the fuck it was, it wasn’t exactly what anyone would reasonably consider welcoming, though.”

Again, that odd smile flashed across Rose’s face. It disappeared just as she began to speak, though. “Yeah, that’s Dave for you. Well, I’ll just provide you with a simplistic crash course. Obviously, you know Dave and I. The only others on this ship are John and Kanaya. I haven’t previously mentioned the latter, though, so I’ll just say you’ll be able to easily tell them apart. John’s an old acquaintance of Dave’s. A childhood friend, I suppose you’d call him…”

“Okay, but how in the name of any celestial being could you possibly be related to that mind-numbing, ass-scratching jackass back there?” Karkat cut in.

“Hm?” A smirk. “Well, we’re not all that closely related,” Rose explained. “Aside from that, Dave wasn’t always so… Abrasive? Splenetic? Let’s just say he’s changed a lot. Although, assuredly, he’s always been a stubborn jackass. Is that a sufficient answer?”

After a brief moment of silence, Karkat nodded. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his tattered black slacks and shrugged. “Yeah. That makes sense. Just… Do I have to be trapped like a fucking mouse in his godawful room?”

“Trust me, Karkat,” Rose countered, flashing what seemed to be her signature enigmatic grin, “Despite being such a noisome place to be, his room truly is the best living arrangement for you.”

 _How un-fucking-fortunate_.

“Anyhow, I’m currently needed in the engine room. There’s some sort of technical problem that needs to be attended to. I’ll see you around, I suppose.”

“Yeah…”

With another odd sigh, Karkat watched Rose disappear down the winding hallways of the ship. Then, with little else to do, he turned and scuffed the already battered toe of his faded leather shoe against the wall. He pulled his foot back and gave the wall another disheartened kick.

_Where the hell am I?_

He paused. Slowly, it dawned upon Karkat that he’d never bothered to keep track of where he’d been going. (Certainly, such an oversight was irrefutable proof that he was human at his core.) And, for this lapse in judgement, he allowed himself a quietly snarled, “fuck.”

Then, with the knowledge that he’d never get anywhere by just standing in one place, he turned on his heel and began wandering down the long, gunmetal grey corridors.

Eventually, it all began to blend together. He ended up in what he could only assume was the heart of the ship’s artificial gravity—a fairly massive centrifugal, rotating wheel with walls of pure steel.

Normally, he would have tried the various doors available to him. They seemed to be spaced at fairly regular intervals, after all. About every fifty steps there was one. But, without much frame of reference, he didn’t really know where any of them would lead him.

So, instead, he buried his hands even deeper into his pockets and began mindlessly circling the entire space. He walked straight forward with no set goal—all he really wanted to do was move around a little. After all, being stuck on a tiny city on a moon satellite comprised mainly of water didn’t make a very active environment for an android.

He continued in this manner for what totaled to—at least according to the clock programmed into his very being—roughly an hour before a sudden sound interrupted him.

It was, specifically, the disharmonious screech of an under-oiled metal door being opened. And, then, it was an oddly familiar voice—though, this time, Karkat noted, a bit quieter and perhaps a bit more tired than before. Yet, oddly enough, the actual words didn’t seem to reflect that. “If you’re looking for the way back to the room, tin can, it’s this way.”

Karkat, in return, allowed his gaze to drift upwards—a few yards ahead of him—to the image of Dave Strider leaning casually against an open door. “You’ve decided to be a decent fucking human being today?”

“Nah,” Dave shrugged, “I just figured you’d get lost. I mean…”

Karkat, meanwhile, allowed the rotating floor to direct him to the correct door. Then, he followed the bounty hunter down a seemingly endless stretch of the same gunmetal grey hallways as before. “You mean what?” he prompted.

“I mean… I guess… I guess I’m trying to say I’m sorry for being such a jackass. I… At least… I don’t think I’m the friendliest guy in the entire damned galaxy. And I’m certainly not the most qualified to judge what ain’t definably human, y’know?” Here, he added a somewhat shy, fleeting glance—the type of glance given when someone is trying to rapidly gauge their conversational partner’s reaction to something. Then, he continued. “And, I mean… I get it if you don’t trust me. I was just proposing we make some kinda truce, y’know?”

_Truce?_

For a short while, Karkat fell silent. He considered the options available to him.

Certainly, he could remain antagonistic; he could continue the feud and live out what would presumably be his last month alive in a state of perpetual spite. Although, theoretically, no ship could fly from Ganymede to Mars on a singular tank. He’d absolutely have a chance to escape. Although, if he judged Dave’s character correctly, that didn’t seem like something where the risk would outweigh the reward.

Or, alternatively, he could accept the truce…

Or…

“Fine,” he agreed. “I’ll try to keep my general jackassery to a minimum if you do.”

Dave, in return, offered a small smile—one that, for some strange reason, Karkat found himself drawn to. “That sounds cool. So, um… Thanks for helping me out.”

“Part of my integral programming,” shrugged Karkat, “It wasn’t like I really had a fucking choice. When I see shit like that, it just automatically triggers the most visceral reaction possible. I have to help or at least offer help. But, yeah, sure. Whatever floats your conceited, obtuse boat, I guess. You’re welcome.”

“So… Do you sleep at all?”

“I power down periodically. If no solar power is available I’m programmed to seek out an alternate source of energy… Why does it matter to you, anyhow? Weren’t you just calling me a tin can?”

“Yeah. But I was just curious.”

“Hmph.”

Again, a small smile flashed across Dave’s face. “Yeah. I get it. I’m shady as fuck. You sure as hell don’t have any obligation to trust me or anything. I just wanted to… Clear the air, I guess?”

“Fair enough…”

“Yeah.”

Another odd silence descended upon the pair.

For Karkat, it was a welcome break. He’d never been particularly fond of being surrounded by constant idle chatter. As far as he knew, he wasn’t very good at it when he was still fully human; he sure as hell wasn’t good at it with roughly half his mind filled with an assortment of medical knowledge.

“Anyhow, it’s getting pretty late. I’m going to bed. I guess you can tinker with the shit in my room. I don’t really give a damn.”

Karkat paused. It dawned upon him that the pair had reached what he could only assume was the entry to Dave’s room. At the very least, that’s what he was guessing by the gaudy caution tape taped haphazardly around the bulkhead’s frame. He watched absentmindedly as Dave pried the door open and ducked through the relatively small opening.

For a while—perhaps half an hour or so—Dave went through some sort of disorganized nighttime routine. He locked the door to his room, cleared a veritable array of junk off of his bed, and did some other fairly normal rituals. When finished, he merely offered a mumbled “g’night” before burying himself in the tattered red blanket spread over his bed.

And, with little else to do, Karkat wandered around the room. He cast insubstantial glances towards the old newspapers plastered on the walls like paint. He browsed through some of the headlines. After seeing about three dozen headlines praising Dave’s bounty hunting records, however, he stopped.

He moved, instead, to a beaten-down old bookshelf—one of those antique types from Earth before everything went to shit. He browsed through the titles—taking in some of the letters emblazoned across bent, fading spines. Most of the books seemed to have a small, looping “RL” near the base of their spine; presumably, these belonged to Rose at some point.

A few books, however, bore a sloppy “DS” on the spine. And, for some odd reason, Karkat found himself drawn to these. Not that there were many. There was one book with a fading cardboard cover and a spine made of what seemed to be mostly duct tape; scribbled hastily on this improvised binding was the title, _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_. About three shelves below this was another book with Dave’s initials—a gently-used copy of _Frankenstein_. (And a fairly expensive one, too, Karkat noticed. Not many people had the resources to get their hands on a copy with a now-defunct, Earth-based publishing company branded on it.)

What truly piqued Karkat’s interest, though, was a plain composition notebook. One of the black and white ones used in schools. It wasn’t a novel; in fact, it was haphazardly jammed into the lowest shelf between two oversized romance books.

Surely, it was nothing worth looking at.

Yet, he found himself gently prying it from its space. And, once it was free, he found himself opening the book and glancing at its pages.

Most of them seemed to be journal entries from 2059. All of them were written in oddly cramped yet childish handwriting.

He disregarded these. Rather, he continued to absentmindedly flip through the book until he came across an image of a young man—theoretically, no older than fifteen years old—with an oddly familiar smirk and tousled blond hair.

Beneath this photo was a news headline.

_Sole survivor of Prospit port attacks released from hospital_

Prospit…

He knew that name.

But… From where?

A loud sneeze from Dave interrupted his thoughts. It also prompted him to hastily slam the notebook shut and cram it back into its hiding place. Glancing towards the sleeping man, however, was enough to tell him that he hadn’t woken up.

Still, Karkat took this as his cue to stop snooping around. He settled himself into a heavily patched-together armchair and sighed. Then, he engaged himself in what he usually did when he was alone; he began digging through the furthest depths of his mind for any sort of memories about his former existence.


	2. 內階一

“You suck at this game, John.” Dave sighed. He plucked the smoldering remains of a cigarette—at best, the last inch and a half or so—from between his lips and ground it against the black stone ashtray beside him. “You’ve got to line up your shots, dude. You can’t just smack the cue ball around like you’re playing a damned game of golf.”

“Oh really?” John yawned.

“Yeah, dude,” Dave smirked. He spun his pool cue between his fingers before lining up his shot. “Yeah. You’ve gotta have a plan. Or, at least, know if you’re solids or stripes. Which, by the way, thanks for sinking most of mine.”

“I did not.”

“Mhm,” Dave answered with a skeptical nod. He let forth another quiet sigh, lined himself up with the cue, and set up his shot. “And then you just…” He drew the cue back slightly, steadied it, and gave the cue ball a sufficient enough hit to send it sliding smoothly towards the eight ball, which subsequently disappeared into one of the corner holes.

Then, with another smirk, he straightened himself and let the cue drop so that he held it like a cane. “See, Egbert?” he said, his voice dripping with an obviously fake stuffy accent, “Not that hard, now, is it?”

John, in reply, rolled his eyes. He straightened his rectangular black glasses and shrugged. “I mean, you do kind of have a really tall pool table.”

“True.”

“So, you want another game?”

“Why not. Loser sets it up.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m not really into that, but I mean…” Dave waggled his eyebrows. He rubbed some chalk onto the tip of his cue before helping himself to another beer. He popped it open on the edge of the metal minibar from which it had been retrieved and took a sip before glancing towards John. “Come on, Egbert, we’ve only got so long to live. By the time you set these damned things out we’ll be fossils. Space fossils. We’ll just be little chunks of space debris floating around in hell-knows-where for hell-knows-how-long.”

John replied with a smirk. “You’re welcome to set it up yourself, Dave.”

“No, watching you do it is fine with me.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” John goaded.

Then, an amicable silence fell between the two.

John continued setting up the table; and, when it was all finished, he looked expectantly at Dave. “So, what? You go first?”

“Loser goes first. Try and get an edge on me this time, would you?” Dave snickered as he lit yet another cigarette.

John, meanwhile, began trying to judge where he wanted to hit. Though, from what Dave knew, John just liked playing pool with him; he had no real interest in winning. And, as if to reflect this, John quickly decided on a rather ineffective head-on shot for the break.

“I’ve seen a literal corpse do a better break that that, Egbert,” ribbed Dave.

“Yeah?” Here, oddly enough, John paused. His usual wide grin seemed to take a few steps down from its usual intensity as he leaned against the back wall, his arms folded expectantly over his pool cue. “So… How’re you getting along with Karkat?”

“Huh?” Dave found himself shooting the cue ball without realizing it. He blinked, watched the ball sink into a corner pocket, and frowned. “Um… Yeah… He’s okay.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Dave I know,” John shrugged. “You can’t be saying that you’re second-guessing the bounty.”

“I’m not! That tin can is still going to Mars and getting turned to scrap metal. Now, you going to come take your shot or not?”

“No… You can shoot again.”

Dave sighed. He ran his fingers through his golden-blond hair and plucked the cue ball from its place in the corner pocket before dropping it back where it had been to begin with. “Why does it matter to you, anyhow?”

“It doesn’t.”

A low, guttural grow. Dave shot the cue ball towards the same ball as he had before. This time, once again, it missed. It bounced off the edge of the table and rolled to a stop without hitting anything.

John, meanwhile, stepped forward to take his turn. And, to Dave’s annoyance, he continued commenting on the topic as he haphazardly lined up a shot. “I was just wondering because… I mean… Isn’t the bounty head the same model as one of those other combat medics?”

“Yes,” Dave huffed.

“Yeah. The same one from home port? From Prospit?”

Dave felt his grip on his pool cue tighten. He felt the synthetic wood splinter in his grasp. Not that it was causing him any physical harm—all the shards merely splintered further against the metal beneath the synthetic skin of his right hand. And the artificial nerves only registered the mildest of feelings and the most extreme pain associated with a function-stopping problem. Still… “Yeah. It is.”

By now, john had stopped lining up his shot. Having seen the state of Dave’s cue, it dawned upon him that he’d gone into territory he wasn’t welcome into. “I… Sorry…”

“No,” Dave grumbled as he leaned the longer half of his now-broken cue against the wall and tossing the smaller half aside. “I’m done. Thanks for a good game.”

“Dave?”

By now, though, Dave was engrossed in plucking buts of wood from his synthetic skin. Aside from that, he’d already made it through the open rec room door and into the hallway. And, in this oddly focused daze, he wandered back to his room. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

“You’re certainly in a fucking fantastic mood, now, aren’t you?”

Ignoring the commentary from his newfound roommate, Dave wandered to the table in the corner. He sat down, rummaged through the drawers, and began to pull out the supplies he used to maintain what he called his outward humanity. A small, battery-powered heating device and some synthetic rubber skin.

“Not to say that I still don’t hate you, but I’m just wondering… You okay?”

“Hm?” Dave paused. He flicked the last bit of wood he could find into the trashcan nearby and shrugged. “Yeah… I’m just thinking about shit. None of it’s your problem.”

“Okay, well… I mean…”

“You know anything about Prospit?” Dave said suddenly.

“The city on Ganymede?”

“Mhm.”

“An apartment block got blown to hell there a while back. Only had one survivor, didn’t it?” Karkat muttered.

“Mhm.” Dave paused. He flexed his hand and studied the spots where the skin had torn. As far as he could tell, there weren’t any noticeable tears. His gaze drifted towards Karkat once more. He quirked his brow and—in an odd move for him—removed his usual sunglasses, revealing a pair of pure red eyes. “So, tell me about yourself.”

“Why should I?”

A shrug. “I ain’t saying you have to. I’m just saying that I need something else to think about right now. Talk about something. Anything. How the hell have you lasted ten years past the public shutdown of all CG-413 units?”

“I don’t fucking know. I didn’t even know they did that.”

Dave sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair and let it fall back into its naturally disheveled state. Then, acting on what he’d learned from past experience, he grabbed a pencil and a notebook. He lit himself a cigarette and flipped to the first available page. “Just tell me shit. Tell me anything. I don’t give a damn,” he grumbled as he began to sketch.

“I… Um… I’m not all that fucking interesting, really. Life’s a massive clusterfuck right now being artificially created and all, but…”

Dave nodded slowly. He let his gaze flick from his page to Karkat. Back and forth. Constantly. “Really, bro, just lay it all down. Drop as much shit as you want.”

“This is all out of the fucking blue.”

For a brief moment, Dave paused. He allowed himself the luxury of tapping the eraser end of his pencil against the page opposite the one he was working on and met Karkat’s gaze. “Look, tin can, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a hell of a lot of things that I’d much rather forget. But, I can’t. So the next best thing is just waiting for it all to play out. You get it?”

After a brief pause—during which Dave rapidly resumed his sketching—Karkat responded, “Yeah. Surprising. I never thought that someone as detestably stubborn and patently volatile would let something so truthful spill from your mouth.” He folded his arms across his chest and shrugged. “Anything? I can talk about fucking anything?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

“Hm… Well… I missing eating, I guess. I remember pretty fucking clearly a handful of things that I couldn’t get enough of. Chocolate and apples, mainly…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Not that it matters to you, you insensitive shitstain.”

“Nope. Not really.”

“What the hell are you drawing, anyhow?”

“You.”

Karkat froze. His gaze fell upon the notebook page—now covered in rough, jumbled lines of graphite. And, together, they formed just what Dave said; together, they formed a rather angular and stylized image of himself. “You… Draw?”

“The mind-gurus with their fancy degrees said it would keep me from going too deep into the shit I don’t want to deal with.”

“Makes sense.”

“Hmph.” With a quick tug, Dave pulled the page free from the book. He spun the office chair he was sitting in around and taped the now-freed image to the wall. (This therefore added it to a veritable array of drawing—some of people, some of things, and some of fantastical beasts.) Then, he turned to Karkat. “Hate to have to say it again, tin can, but thanks for helping me out.”

“You’re… welcome?” muttered a mildly dazed Karkat.

Dave, in the meantime, had jammed his notebook back into the drawer and dropped his pencil back into the glass jar he seemed to use as a penholder. And, with his hands buried as deeply into his pockets as they could go, he offered a curt nod before hurrying out of the room.

* * *

 

_“I am the CG-413. I am certified as a combat medic and authorized to perform certain life-saving procedures during an MCI situation…”_

Once again, Karkat found himself wandering through the bowels of the ship. This time, though, he made sure to keep track of where he was going. Neither of those insubstantial things matter, though.

What matters is that, during this walk, he quite literally ran into a man no more than two or three inches taller than himself—a man with wild black hair and thick, rectangular glasses and a nervous half-smile. And, to Karkat’s surprise, the man’s reaction wasn’t to berate him for not watching where he was going; rather, the man extended his hand and introduced himself. “John Egbert,” he said, “I’m a friend of Dave’s…”

Karkat, in return, nodded. With the exposed metal tip of his left hand, he gently pushed the man’s outstretched hand away. “”Yeah… Okay…?”

“I’m guessing you’re Karkat?”

Again, Karkat nodded. “You’re not wrong.”

“You seen Dave around here anywhere?”

A brief pause. Then, a somewhat muffled reply. “I mean… The annoying bastard just barged into the room and started drawing a picture of me. Something about suppressing shitty thoughts? I mean… Not like I like or sympathize with the insufferable puddle of putrid piss, but…”

“Did you see where he went?”

Karkat smirked. “What? You and him fucking each other?”

John, in return, offered a look of pure terror. “No! No! We’re friends! I’m not interested in him. I’m not interested on anyone on this ship!”

“Calm down. Jesus Christ. It was just a joke. And, no, I didn’t see where he went.”

“Oh…” For the first time since Karkat had met him, the smile on his face vanished. It was replaced, instead, by an embarrassed frown. “I… I think I brought up something I wasn’t supposed to… I mean…”

“Yeah,” Karkat shrugged. He buried his hands into his pockets and began to actively engage in judging John’s reactions. He adopted the most casual stance he could think of. If anything, what he wanted was information; he wanted to know who he was stuck with for a month. Not because he liked him, of course. He hated the bastard… Right?

Right! Of course right!

He shook the thought without much hesitation and plowed onwards. “Yeah. He was talking about Prospit when he showed up. Does he just fucking hate that waterlogged dump?”

“No,” John mused, “I mean… He was born there. I was, too. But it’s just… I shouldn’t be telling you this…”

 _Damn_.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Dave would kick my ass all the way to Mars… But… I mean, if you ask Rose, she’ll tell you… No. I’m not the one to tell you. Really, neither is Rose. Ask him about it.”

“Hmph.” Karkat pulled his hands from where he’d hidden them in his pockets and shrugged. “Okay. Well, thanks for a whole lot of absolutely fucking nothing—a whole galaxy of complete and utter bullshit.”

Once again, John’s smile returned. “You’re welcome. You seem like a fun dude, though, Karkat.” He turned, offered a curt wave, and began to make his way down the hallway. “See you around, I guess?”

“Yeah.”

Once John had disappeared from his line of sight, Karkat turned. He worked his way back to Dave’s room. Yet, when he tried to get inside, he found the door locked. So, with little else left to do—or, rather, little else that he could possibly think of doing—he leaned his back against the wall and slid into a sitting position. He then hugged his knees to his chest and indulged in the one activity that he could always fall back on—contemplating his purpose.

(Not that it was necessarily a hobby. That would imply that Karkat actually _enjoyed_ questioning his very existence. Rather, it was just something that happened. When there was a lack of input, Karkat naturally fell back on overanalyzing his situation.

Eventually, though, he was dredged from the murky depths of his own mind by the sensation of someone shaking him by the shoulder.

“Hey. Tin can.”

He frowned and glanced upwards, towards a familiar face. “Dave?” he muttered.

“Yeah. That’s my name. Congrats,” was the harsh reply. “You’ve been out here for hours.”

“And why would that matter to you?”

Dave shrugged. He stuck a cigarette between his lips, held it in place with his teeth, and lit the end. After deeply inhaling the carcinogenic fumes, he plucked it from his mouth long enough to reply, “I mean… It’s pretty pointless for me to just let you stay out here. And this damned ship isn’t all that great at keeping up with heating. Gets pretty cold in those open halls.”

“Hm?” Karkat responded with a similar air of what he registered as uncertain indifference—at the very least, that’s the sensation that he felt at that point.

Another shrug. Dave offered his hand towards Karkat to help him up. “Just come inside. There’s no point in just sitting in the hallway. And I’ll look like a damned asshole if I let you.”

“Well, you’d be looking like what you are,” Karkat pointed out, shoving the outstretched hand away.

Dave, after a brief moment of what Karkat could only guess was shock, frowned. He furrowed his brow, folded his arms across his chest, and exhaled a plume of smoke from his nostrils. “Yeah… I guess that’s right.”

Without a clear view of Dave’s eyes, Karkat tried (and failed) to gauge the man’s reaction by the tone of his voice. Yet, to his surprise, even the most complex analytical tools he had at his disposal turned out the same inconclusive results.

And, all the while, Dave continued. By this point, though, he’d turned his back and was wandering back into the room. “I’m a fucking asshole. Not like that’s anything new to me.” He shrugged.

Karkat, against his usual instincts, said nothing as he followed a few steps behind.

So, an oddly serene silence fell between the two. And, in silence, Dave finished the rest of his cigarette. After extinguishing it against a black stone ashtray, he offered a curt wave. “I’m going to bed. G’night, tin can.”

And, after a brief moment of thought, Karkat nodded. On a conscious level, he knew his reply didn’t matter. There was no way that Dave could have seen it, after all; he was looking in the opposite direction. Still, he felt obligated to reply.

Likewise, there was one other odd feeling stirring within him. This one, however, was harder to explain. It was an odd sense of inner pull—a sort of tug on what he could only presume to be the remainders of his own traditionally defined humanity. And, oddly enough, he found it happening more often. Even stranger than that was the fact that this odd sensation only seemed to settle in when he was near Dave.

Certainly, though, it was nothing. It was little more than a glitch in some long-outdated software. It had to be… After all, what else could it have been?

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback are always welcome! Thanks for reading ~~the AU that no one wanted~~ my fic! As per usual, I suck at doing any sort of beta work, so if you see a typo, feel free to point it out. I'm also an art history major so I know... Like... Zippo about space physics.


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